


ghosts up from the concrete

by wastrelwoods



Series: bad things happen bingo [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Fake Marriage, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-Episode: s3e01 Juno Steel and the Man In Glass, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sensory Overload, i did do a hit on juno again, mutual pining? YEAH you BET, you know if it happens in canon all the time i'm gonna steal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-19 10:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22009276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/wastrelwoods
Summary: His first thought is that Juno must have noticed something horribly wrong, spotted something with that keen eye of his that had bypassed Nureyev completely, and he reaches out, brushing the tips of his gloved fingers against the skin of Juno’s wrist, looking for a signal or a sign or a word of warning. What he gets is an unmistakable flinch.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: bad things happen bingo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1281491
Comments: 18
Kudos: 371





	ghosts up from the concrete

**Author's Note:**

> ok well this one might be more intense for some folks but...you know...progress isn't linear and doing some work on your traumas doesn't mean that trauma completely disappears, unfortunately,,
> 
> content warning for a detailed depiction of a panic attack, although not directly from the perspective of the person experiencing it! also some OCs expressing some demeaning views of young children in a tone that could be upsetting

If he didn’t believe better of her, Nureyev would suspect Captain Aurinko has some sort of hidden agenda.

It does make a kind of logical sense. The keys that will eventually lead them to the Curemother Prime are largely in the possession of the plutocracy, and wealthy people are particularly easy to rob when they’re parading all that wealth around a ballroom, but it’s hardly necessary to infiltrate every black-tie function in this spiral arm of the galaxy on their way to their goal. 

Probably she’s observed that Juno, specifically, is a sight to behold in a tuxedo or a gown or any combination of the above, but it’s rarely to their advantage on missions of this kind to be so disarmingly eye-catching. To brush that aside for another opportunity to see their detective decked out in diamonds and silks seems impractical in a way that Buddy is not. 

And to ask Nureyev to accompany him again? Twice might be a coincidence, but three times is a pattern, and he can’t comprehend the reasoning for _that_. Nureyev might have known Juno rather more...intimately, than the other members of the crew, once, but he is not so naive as to presume he is Juno’s closest companion. Juno could have any partner he chose and carry off this mission perfectly well. 

It must be a punishment, then. Captain Aurinko hangs him off Juno’s arm at every opportunity simply to torment him, force him to carry out every mission while fighting the compulsion to do something ridiculous like grasp Juno Steel by the waist and pin him to one of these buffet tables and rip that necktie off with his teeth. 

It’s rather galling, to be unable to raise a complaint without admitting to what exactly the problem is: a certain lapse of professionalism, where Juno is concerned. 

As for the matching rings on their gloved hands, well, that’s another perplexing pattern. Nureyev had promised himself not to turn tail and run after the Globe of Reaches Far, but the Captain’s continued insistence on his playing at matrimony may manage to frighten him off yet.

It’s _delicate_ , the peace between he and Juno. Apt to splinter apart again if handled too roughly, too eagerly. Nureyev has been bloodied by shrapnel once, and he does his best to be mindful of the tenuous nature of their partnership, and keeps his hands to himself. 

There’s plenty to divert his attention at this gala. Trays of fruit imported fresh from private groves on Earth and snifters full of Jovian Cognac so strong the scent alone makes his head spin. Spinning chandeliers casting colored light over the walls that shifts from blue to red to violet and back again. Jewels at wrists and throats that sparkle like starlight. Distant strains of a waltz on sitar and harp drifting in from the balcony, and the rush of the waterfall just beyond that. 

Still, he catches his eyes drifting time and again back to the line of Juno’s shoulders in his slim-cut tailcoat, and the glint of the gold ring on his dark skin. 

He can’t help thinking it’s exactly the kind of place he might have thought of bringing Juno to, one day, a brief shining stop on the endless whirlwind tour between the stars he’d dreamed up. A future that never came to pass, for all they’re living a facsimile of it at this very moment. A future where they might both have been a little freer to make whatever choices they pleased. 

Nureyev blinks, and puts the thought neatly back in its place, out of sight if not entirely out of mind. He swirls the snifter and gets another heady whiff of brandy that does very little to clear his head. 

Juno turns to meet his eye, and Nureyev can see his jaw is clenched and his expression is strained. Still, he offers a pinched smile and a nod, beckoning him over. Nureyev goes to meet him without breaking his stride, smiling wide and guileless at the couple he’s already engaged in conversation. 

“Oh, you must be Lord Lotos,” the woman says brightly, clasping at her spouse’s elbow. Her face is narrow and slightly sour. It’s a face he recognizes from the briefing before the mission, of course, but he’d be able to tell she was an heiress regardless from the way she looks down her nose. “Lady Iris was just telling us all about you, darling. Sounds utterly smitten, that’s what I think, but then newlyweds ought to be, hm?” 

It’s Peter’s turn to feel his smile grow tight, but he bows and offers his hand out to her nonetheless. 

“Ha.” Juno agrees, mirthlessly. “Uh...honey, this is…” He’s silent for a moment, and Nureyev glances over to see him scowling at his polished shoes, the name escaping him.

Nureyev clears his throat. “Mrs. and Mx. Messier, wasn’t it? Amazing work you’re doing, with the pharmaceutical business. Very cutting edge stuff, it’s quite exciting.” 

“Daisy, darling.” The heiress shakes his hand and her spouse follows suit, peering at Nureyev suspiciously from behind their long white lashes. “This is Maxim.”

“My, uh. My husband,” Juno stammers, and then, almost as an afterthought, “Uh, Albert.”

“Charmed,” the spouse says, in a flat voice that indicates they unequivocally are not. 

Daisy Messier scoffs a little. “And please, let’s not talk business here! I mean, blathering on about what one does for work is hardly riveting conversation, hm? Barely anything to talk about, darling. Money changes hands, and when it finally comes my way I can stop worrying about it and start shopping for a new starliner. _Do_ ask me about my starliner, Lord Lotos.” 

Nureyev opens his mouth to comply, but Messier seems content to breeze right along without stopping for a response. “Oh, but enough about me, tell me about the two of you! How long have you been married, then? Are we expecting the pitter-patter of little feet anytime soon?” 

Juno makes a pinched face, and Nureyev shoots him a quick glance in sympathy. 

“I…” He makes the error of pausing to collect himself. “Well, we hadn’t begun to think--”

“Don’t,” the spouse interrupts. “Not worth the trouble.” Their wife titters a little laugh into her Cognac. 

“Such a card, Maxie” she trills fondly, “Of course, children are always a blessing, but ours are a bloody nuisance.”

Nureyev clenches his jaw to hold back the urge to frown, and settles for a blank stare. “Ah.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Messier elaborates. “It’s a full-time job just getting the little monsters to stop crying all through the night.” 

From her droll tone the heiress expects a hearty chortle in response to this witty gem, but Nureyev can scarcely manage a conciliatory nod, attention diverted by the way Juno goes rigid. 

His first thought is that Juno must have noticed something horribly wrong, spotted something with that keen eye of his that had bypassed Nureyev completely, and he reaches out, brushing the tips of his gloved fingers against the skin of Juno’s wrist, looking for a signal or a sign or a word of warning. What he gets is an unmistakable flinch. 

“Iris, dearest--” Nureyev prompts, smothering a pang of anxiety with an airy laugh.

“Something the matter?” Maxim asks, looking between the pair of them with their painted-on brows raised. 

Juno looks up at Nureyev, but his eye is glassy and distant. He makes an abortive attempt at speech through clenched teeth that comes out as a short, agonized exhale.

He quickly revises his initial assessment, and feels another sharp pang of terror at the thought that Juno has been injured, somehow, without his knowledge. Stunned by some invisible bolt from the sky, or poisoned. Nureyev starts, tries to clutch tighter at Juno’s wrist, but the detective wrenches his hand back like he’s been burned, stumbles away through the crowd like he’s running for his life.

Nureyev lingers only a moment longer, turning a slightly harrowed and not very apologetic glance on the Messiers. “Excuse me,” he spits, and follows suit. 

It’s no easy feat to give chase through an overcrowded ballroom, but Nureyev was a pickpocket before he was anything else, and he knows how to move through a crowd. More importantly, there are very few places to hide away from the throng of bodies. 

He catches sight of Juno not a moment too soon, barely prevents having a washroom door slammed in his face by virtue of a quick dodge and weave. He feels the swelling panic rise to his throat with the thought of it, watching another door shut between himself and Juno, left behind, trapped outside to pound and plead and listen, helpless, and immediately chides himself for the irrationality of the fear. 

“Juno,” he exhales, pushing a bench across the doorframe to barricade it from inside, reaching up for the lapels of his coat and backing away again when Juno recoils. “I should have watched more closely,” he curses. “Was it something in the food or the drink? I didn’t see--”

“What?” Juno’s eye flicks from his outstretched hands to his face and away again. His arms are crossed over his chest protectively, and he’s leaning heavily against the sink, almost hunched over, back to the wall. “I...no, shit..I’m not….” The words come out as a harsh wheeze, like there’s some crushing force squeezing tight around his ribs, and he shakes his head weakly. “God damn it.” 

Nureyev swallows, and tries again, trying not to let desperation color his voice. “Juno, please, we need to act quickly--”

“Not poison,” Juno says firmly, and sits heavily on the tile floor, knees drawn in to his chest. Nureyev kneels beside him, still cataloging a list of symptoms in his head, arms held awkwardly at his sides until Juno allows him to make a real examination. Rapid and shallow breathing, pupil dilated, sweat beading on his forehead. 

Frustration overwhelms his better judgement, and Peter drags his fingers through his hair, groaning. “Then what--”

A choked-off gasp of a bitter sob escapes Juno, and he curls in on himself a little tighter. “Stupid, it’s nothing, it’s stupid--” 

“Juno--”

“I don’t know,” he snaps, muffled into the crook of his arm. “D-don’t know, okay?” The detective sucks in one shallow breath, then another, and another, and reaches up to tug at his necktie with fumbling, shaky fingers. “Stupid fucking tight--”

He makes little headway, and after another moment Nureyev reaches out again, slowly and deliberately as he can manage. “May I?” 

Juno stares at him, wary panic warring with frustration on his face before he clenches his teeth, offers a shaky nod. Nureyev slips one finger through the knot of the tie and tugs gently, loosening it enough to offer Juno a little respite. He lets out an unsteady, shivering sigh and nods again, and Nureyev sits back on his heels, waiting, knees on the cold tile. 

Another long minute passes, while Juno’s sharp, ragged breathing fails to slow or even out, and the sweat stars to run down his face in beads. “Fuck,” he pants, beating one palm against the floor to punctuate the oath. Nureyev leans forward, and Juno leans back again. “Fuck, I c...I can’t fucking breathe, Peter.” 

Something twists in the center of Nureyev’s chest at the hoarseness of his voice, the palpable pain and fear. He presses his curled fingers into his thighs to keep from reaching out, swallows hard. “Look at me, Juno,” he pleads. “Darling, will you look at me?”

Juno’s eye flickers to his face again and wavers. His cheeks are flushed and his gaze is unsteady, like it’s taking all his strength just to look up and meet Nureyev’s eyes. 

Nureyev only half knows what he’s doing, legs cramping where they’re folded underneath him, stomach twisting in knots with uncertainty and a buzzing at the back of his head that reminds him he’s helpless to truly protect Juno from whatever demons are lurking in his mind, that he has no control, that it shouldn’t even be his place to presume to help--

But there’s no one else here. For better or worse, Nureyev is the first line of defense tonight. He exhales, files away his apprehension, and inhales, deep and slow and deliberate. 

“Can you match me?” he says, softly. “Match my breathing.” 

Juno shudders, gasps, “Can’t--”

“Try, for me?” Nureyev keeps his voice low, measured, calm. Counts in on another breath, and holds it, and lets it out again. Juno’s eye flickers down from his face to the rise and fall of his chest. 

It takes him a long moment to mirror the rhythm, trying and faltering and trying and faltering again. “Why can’t I…” he forces the words out, rasping and thin. “I can’t stop--”

“You can,” Nureyev promises. “You can, love, you will.” He reaches out, offers one hand, palm up, and when Juno takes it he leans in a little closer, presses the detective’s shaking hand to his chest and holds it there, breathing in. Holding it, Letting it out again. Slow, measured. 

Juno shuts his eye and clenches his jaw, sucking in a breath and holding it a little longer than before. His palm is warm and solid where it rests over Nureyev’s heart, and the sensation is both grounding and utterly petrifying. 

After another minute of this, the pressure at last appears to loosen from Juno’s chest, and his breath evens out to a deeper, steadier rhythm, by slow degrees. His skin still glistens with sweat, pooled in the creases of his face and the hollow of his throat, and his brow remains furrowed, his shoulders drawn high and tense. Nureyev tightens his fingers around Juno’s for a moment and lets his hand fall, brushing his thumb softly against the back of his hand as he does. 

Juno’s eye flickers open again, peering at him with a confusion that rapidly congeals into embarrassment. His hand drops. “Uh.” He blinks, clears his throat again. “Th..thanks. For that.” 

Nureyev shifts, knees stiff and aching where they’ve been pressed to the tile floor. 

“Sorry,” Juno says abruptly. 

Nureyev quirks a brow. “For?” 

“You shouldn’t have to--” he stops himself, breathes in, out again, and ducks his head. “I’m not some kid, I shouldn’t...make you _coddle_ me like--”

“Juno,” he interjects, a little quicker than he meant to, still feeling a little frozen in place. “Thank you,” he echoes, after a moment. “For letting me help.” 

Juno looks away, shifts uncomfortably. His suit will be horribly creased when it comes off. Buddy might be put out, if she were a less wholly compassionate woman than she is. As it is Nureyev suspects the thought of telling him off wouldn’t even cross her mind. “Really thought I was dying for a minute there,” Juno rasps, “Fuck, my head hurts.” He glances back, looking apologetic, and sighs “Nureyev, I don’t know if I can….”

“I’ll call the Captain,” Nureyev murmurs, repositioning into a crouch. “We’ll call it off. I think that’s more than enough excitement for one evening, hm?” 

A brief spasm of guilt wracks Juno’s face, but he acquiesces, making as if to rise to his feet. 

Nureyev waves him away until he settles again, not trusting the detective’s trembling legs to stand his weight until it’s absolutely necessary. “And not a moment too soon, I think,” he promises, comms in hand. “What an absolutely deplorable mess of a gala. I’ve seen more tasteful decor in drainage gutters. And the hors d’oeuvres had all gone cold.” 

Juno gives him a look that promises he isn’t convinced, but he looks a little more appeased, shrugging out of his tailcoat by slow degrees and undoing the top few buttons of his dress shirt. Nureyev very carefully averts his eyes, staring down at the signal on his comms while the message transmits. 

A fragile thing. A tenuous partnership. Best not to presume too much when nothing has been offered but a fresh start. 

Nureyev is a thief with a greedy nature, always wanting what has never been promised to him. He cannot be so callous with Juno Steel’s presence in his life. 

He shakes his head to clear it, and looks back to see Juno already watching him with a curiously intent expression on his face. “Something wrong?” 

The detective stares at him with that eye that always seemed able to pierce him right to the soul. He’s pushed his shirtsleeves up past his elbows, shifted into a posture not dissimilar from a sprawl, a little more of the former tension receded. “Just thinking about something I heard earlier,” he dismisses. “Not sure what it means yet.” The timbre of his voice has gone a little rough at the edges again, and his lips are drawn into a tiny, contemplative frown. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” 

Taking a moment to ensure his own voice is entirely empty of affect, Nureyev quirks a smile. “Is that a promise, Detective?”

His eyes meet Juno’s again, and there’s something in them that catches and holds his attention a moment longer than he meant to give it, a bright spark of something that might be hope and might be a coincidental shifting of the light. “Yeah,” Juno agrees, quietly. “Later. We’ll talk later.”

**Author's Note:**

> BAD THINGS HAPPEN BINGO FILL #3: sensory overload
> 
> I think it's interesting that the range of Juno's responses to trauma throughout season 2 varies so widely depending on context and mood and they can be subtle or overwhelming, but I did see this prompt specifically as a variable that might trigger a more intense panic response. 
> 
> ALSO with the way we left things at the end of last episode, it's hard to tell what kind of relationship juno and peter are walking away from their Important Conversation having established, but i chose More Pining because i can never get enough of that pining and this is my sandbox I am playing in. I am comfortable allowing that to be completely fucking jossed in a couple of weeks in favor of They're Back Together Now though


End file.
